


idle worship

by pumpkinpaperweight



Series: filling in canon [8]
Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Light Angst, Post-OTK, Strong Language, agatha has a screaming match w pollux. catharsis?, nah that's it this one is mostly fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28152099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpaperweight/pseuds/pumpkinpaperweight
Summary: Agatha finds it impressively optimistic of everyone to think she’s going to be any better at being a Princess now than she was six months ago.--set after otk, sequel to "soldier on, achilles". mostly canon-compliant but deviates slightly on some details. somewhat inspired by princess diana in netflix's "the crown".
Relationships: Agatha/Tedros (The School for Good and Evil)
Series: filling in canon [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651123
Comments: 28
Kudos: 57





	idle worship

**Author's Note:**

> I made an Agatha playlist whilst writing this, which, if I can get the link to work, is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6GeEwDBNKX6ctPuQkLwoz9)  
> (featuring the song this fic is named after, idle worship, and the song this fic was nearly named after, the edge of seventeen sjkhss)

Agatha finds it impressively optimistic of everyone to think she’s going to be any better at being a Princess now than she was six months ago. 

Maybe if they wanted that, they should have started off on the right foot. 

“So, you’ve come back for me, have you?” she says acidly, as the carriage lurches along the path through the Woods. “Appointed enough damage control to let me roam free in the halls? Put all the statues and valuables into storage? Did Tedros cry enough to make you feel bad?”

The two dignitaries sent to collect her glance nervously at each other. One of them decides he’d like to try and assert himself. 

“Princess, please. I understand you were upset about being bidden to remain at the School for Good for a few weeks after the King went ahead--”

Agatha noisily starts digging about in her bag for a snack. The dignitary-- whose name she doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know, so she’s going to call him Lord Horse Face-- frowns. 

“But we simply thought it would be best for you to complete a few extra lessons, important ones, that you missed during the… _gaps_ in your education. The King can function without you, for a while.” 

“Lessons like how best to eat a quail’s egg?” asks Agatha, ignoring the last comment. “And what sort of hat to wear, when a crown is not appropriate?”

She flicks the edge of her wide-brimmed lilac hat, which has been viciously secured to her head by Anemone, with the help of hatpins the length of her fingers.

“You constantly belittle the importance of etiquette.” says the other dignitary sternly. Agatha eyes her, feeling distinctly looked down upon. 

“Perhaps I would find more value in etiquette if it wasn’t _all_ I was taught. Could do with some governance to balance it out. Or _any_ governance, in fact."

She slouches down in the carriage seat, sitting as unladylike as her tight skirt will possibly permit. She finds a paper bag of chocolate raisins, provided by Dot, and starts eating them.

“Not exactly the _healthiest_ of choices.” says Lord Horse Face, making a pathetic attempt at sounding light-hearted.

“They were grapes, once.” says Agatha, pouring them into her hand and throwing them one by one, into her mouth.

Neither of them seem to have anything to say to that. Agatha misses and bounces a raisin off her hat. She chews loudly. 

Their bemusement starts to mould into irritation. 

_Tedros_ would have laughed, Agatha thinks sullenly. Are they to have a worse sense of humour than his Majesty?

Still, the two adults opposite glare at her.

“Princess,” begins the woman-- who Agatha has decided to just call Boring-- through gritted teeth. “It will be a foolish move for you to return to your previous ineptitude. Camelot is struggling, and a boost to morale is necessary--”

“And they’re going to get morale from watching me failing to sing or pick china?” snapped Agatha. “Don’t be foolish. The people want competent and stable leadership. Not me flailing about in a flower garden, in a stupid tight dress that makes me like a stick insect, pretending I care what the centerpieces are for my wedding. A wedding which isn’t going to _happen_ until we have some serious infrastructure built back into the kingdom, since I know what I’d rather spend money on, and it’s not a Von Zarashin veil.”

After all, her quest brief isn’t _stand next to Tedros, try and look pretty, sort of fail, and be a laughingstock._ It’s _re-establish the role of Queen of Camelot, with an emphasis on social equality and civil rights,_ even if it seems she’s the only person to remember it _._

Lord Horse Face takes a breath-- 

But Agatha is not to be bullied. Not anymore. If this was last year, if she was still sixteen and fresh out of a fairy tale, the guilt and the strain would have gotten the better of her, and she would have bowed to their pressure like she had to Gremlaine’s, shuffling along to her next public humiliation like a prisoner on death row. But now she’s on the cusp of eighteen, fresh out of a _second_ fairy tale and a farcical trial where one task had been to _kill her._ And then she’d watched _Tedros_ die, beheaded with his father’s sword, and impermanent as it may have been, she finds that things like that tend to put problems such as _which spoon is the right spoon_ into sharp perspective. So, yes, excuse her language, she doesn’t really give a fuck anymore. 

Agatha scrabbles in her travelling bag and produces the worst horror novel Hester had been able to find in the Library of Vice; _Dismemberment in Drupathi,_ the infamous 800 page tome of gore, violence, tortured romance and assassination that most people fainted before finishing. 

Callis had used it as a bedtime story. 

Lord Horse Face goes rather pale, and seems to give up. 

She continues to be a pain in the backside once they get there.

“We’re to introduce you to your new Chief of Staff,” says Boring a few hours later, wincing as Agatha gives up trying to step down from the carriage in the skirt, and jumps instead. “And then I imagine that, amongst other things, you’ll resume your duties.”

“That’s _it?”_ Agatha stops trying to scratch mud off the bottom of her skirt and looks up, aghast. “I thought that we were-- I don’t know. Over that? I thought I could do something more productive?”

She is ignored; the two nobles seem to decide that’s all they have to tell her, and go marching ahead, Agatha struggling to keep up with them. The dress Anemone had forced her into is tight from hips to knees, and flares at the bottom, making her a) look stupid and b) unable to stride like she usually would. It’s also a delicate lilac colour, which is clashing violently with her sallow complexion. It’s generally not a good look on Agatha, though it might have been for a younger Anemone. Agatha suspects her Beautification professor is living vicariously through her. It’s not even in line with current Camelot fashions, and while Agatha doesn’t quite know what they are, she knows they’re not this. She has eyes. 

Sighing, she slogs up the steps and emerges into the Entrance Hall…

Which smells strongly of paint.

Wrinkling her nose, she looks up to find several maids rather enthusiastically slapping paint over a mural on the right hand wall. She can’t quite make out the original picture, but the enthusiasm and the amount of gold and brown suggests to her it was some Lion nonsense. In fact, all hints of Rhian’s narcissistic redecorating have been removed-- chandeliers are missing half of their (lion-shaped) jewels, engravings have been chipped away, the portraits of previous royal families have been uncovered from wherever they’d been hidden and are waiting to be put up, stacked under a staircase.

“Oh,” says Agatha. “You’ve been busy.”

“There’s similar renovations throughout the whole palace.” Boring tells her. “Don’t touch any wet paint, it’ll never come out of that gown. Come, your new Chief of Staff will meet you in the Blue Parlour.”

Agatha grinds her teeth, trailing after them. She knows full well this is just another steward, given a fancy name to stop any post-Gremlaine bias. 

“What’s her name?”

“She is the Duchess of Snakebit Glen.” comes the somewhat stilted reply from Horse Face. Agatha groans to herself. She’s never heard of Snakebit Glen, but is anticipating a stupid province of an Ever kingdom trying to make themselves sound tough. Probably Rainbow Gale. Or Hamelin. Someone suitably inoffensive who Agatha will feel too guilty to argue with, because she’ll probably just cry if Agatha is rude to her. 

* * *

Agatha is not often wrong, but today she is extremely wrong. 

Her new Chief of Staff looks her up and down, pulls a face very similar to Anadil’s, when she’d seen her off that morning, and turns to the nobles. 

“I would speak to the Queen alone.” she says in a surprisingly deep voice. She’s dark-haired and tan, and _extremely_ tall, taller even than Agatha. She has a very sharp, noble nose and is dressed in a well-cut gown of black and red-slitted velvet that would have made Sophie wail in jealousy. Agatha eyes it with interest, fed up of feeling like a french fancy on a tea table. 

“She’s not Queen yet--” begins Boring, but the Duchess of Snakebit Glen shoots her a _look_ that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Agatha’s own face, and the two nobles retreat almost immediately, seemingly euphoric to finally be rid of their obstinate charge.

Agatha barely registers, too busy staring at her new attendant. She _can’t_ be a Never, not in Camelot, but she damn well looks like one. Who would have appointed a Never as her Chief of Staff--?

Well, _she_ would, but she didn’t. 

“Um,” Agatha manages, realising she’s supposed to say something. “Hello. You’re the Duchess of...”

She pauses for slightly too long, trying to remember, and the other woman fills in for her, looking unbothered.

“Snakebit Glen. Province of Netherwood.”

“You _are_ a Never!” blurts out Agatha. The Duchess smiles thinly.

“Yes. You may call me Tisiphone. My family name is Wardwell.” 

She pauses, clearly waiting for a reaction. Agatha blinks at her. 

“Um--”

“Wardwell. Your mother’s surname.” she leans forwards slightly. “I’m your _cousin_ , highness.”

Agatha’s jaw drops. 

_Cousin?_

Tisiphone Wardwell… Wardwell, her mother’s rarely-used surname. She’d heard it bandied around in the Woods, but had assumed it a common name, not actually _related_ to her...

“My-- my mother had siblings? A family? I have _cousins?”_

Tisiphone doesn’t look surprised by her bewilderment. 

“Yes, your mother had two sisters; Eris and Ismene. Ismene is my mother, Eris has no children.”

_“Oh._ Oh, that’s-- wow, I had no idea.” Agatha feels rather dizzy. “Um, can I ask--”

“Why didn’t we seek you out until now?” guesses Tisiphone immediately. 

“...yeah.”

“My grandmother was reserving judgement on you. She was suspicious, given you’re an Ever and a Reader. But about three months ago she gave in, and cracked down on every Never kingdom we have influence over, to let you pass unnoticed.”

“...so that’s why we only seemed to be bothered by Evers.” murmurs Agatha. Then she blinks. “Sorry, _influence?”_

Tisiphone looks at her, eyebrows raised. 

“You really don’t know _anything?”_

“Been a bit… busy.” says Agatha weakly. 

“Hm. Think of us like a mafia.”

“My mother was in the _mafia?”_ splutters Agatha, incredulous. 

“An overly powerful family of sorcerers extending illegal influence and bribery over Never politics, and heading the prohibited potion trade.” says Tisiphone simply. “Mafia.”

“... fair enough. And um, how did you get this position?” 

“Best not to ask.”

“...ah.”

A flicker of amusement graces her cousin’s solemn face. 

“I’m winding you up, the King wrote to me.”

“Oh!” 

“And I poisoned the other potential choices.”

Whether she’s serious or not, Agatha laughs. She flings her travelling case down on the nearest sofa and cackles, unable to help herself.

“I thought Tedros was going to be too nervy to do much, but apparently I was wrong.” she frowns. “Wait, Tedros knew I had family in the Woods and didn’t _tell_ me?”

Tisiphone shrugs, snapping a loose thread from the wrist of her gown. 

“He said that he thought you knew.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

Upon closer inspection, Agatha thinks she’s probably around Dot’s age, nineteen. A year and a bit older than the rest of them. She appears to be a woman of few words, very solemn and unemotional. Probably a good move, given how impetuous Tedros can be and how irritable Agatha gets. 

“Do you have siblings?” she presses, too curious about her mother’s family to bother with anything else. 

“Two younger brothers, Odell and Xander.”

“Oh! And are they… in Netherwood?” 

“Yes, they’re squires for the King’s knights.” Seemingly done with discussing her family, even though Agatha is about to explode with questions, she reaches into her sleeve and produces a paper. “The nobles here-- the ones which are left, anyway-- have given me a letter explaining the current situation. To give to you.”

She turns, heads towards Agatha-- and rather than giving it to her, throws it in the fire. Agatha spurts a nervous laugh, uncertain what to make of this, watching it curl up and crumble. Tisiphone turns matter-of-factly towards her.

“It’s horse shit.” she says plainly. “Except they had one rather good point.”  
“...and what was the point?” asks Agatha, wondering what they possibly could have been right about. 

“That you need to be a distraction.” Tisiphone fluffs her skirts and sits down on one of the sofas uninvited. 

“A _distraction?”_ says Agatha sceptically. 

Tisiphone looks narrowly at her.

“I arrived a few days ago. Met with the King.” she pauses. “Doesn’t look too well, does he?”

Agatha bristles defensively. 

“He’s okay.”

“You and I both know that’s not true. He twitches. Zones out and can’t stay still.”

Agatha stares apprehensively at her. When he’d left Good, Tedros had been… well, not _fine,_ but better. His throat had healed enough to mean he could talk, and he’d been improving. She’d worried he’d get worse again, and apparently he has…

Tisiphone leans back.

“I’ll be plain. As prude and pastel as they may be, the advisors aren’t stupid. They know full well that if Tedros is the one the media focus is on, the kingdom is fucked. He’ll buckle under the pressure, twice as bad as last time. You think everyone’s going to put their trust in him if he looks ready to keel over at every speech? Are they going to believe he can restore Camelot to stability and greatness any more than they did last year--?”

She holds up a hand as Agatha opens her mouth. 

“I know he _can._ But the people don’t. If all they see is him, all they’ll know is he’s seventeen, got overthrown once, and now looks like he’s about to drop dead any second.”

Agatha stares at her, picking nervously at the lace on her dress. 

“You see, then, why a distraction is necessary.” says Tisiphone, looking hard at her. “A big one, at that. _You_ need to be it. You need to take up all of the media attention. Give him time to recover himself.”

Agatha thinks she can see where this is going. 

“Listen, if you want me to return to my previous duties--”

“Yes. I do.”

Agatha groans. 

“Tisiphone, please. The only distraction I’ll cause is making everyone talk about how _bad_ I am at them. I’ll just humiliate myself, every day.”

But her cousin is no longer listening. 

“Are these your maids?”

Agatha turns sharply. 

Four pastel-skirted girls are standing by the door in a row, staring at them. The _same_ pastel-skirted girls she’d had last year. 

“Er,” Agatha peers sheepishly at them. Nameless, spare the nicknames she’d bad temperedly given them; Peach, Pistachio, Grapefruit and Rose. As uniform as ever. “Yes.”

“Good.” Tisiphone turns briskly to the door. “They’ll take you to your rooms before dinner, and I’ll meet you afterwards, to give you your schedule.”

“Tisiphone--”

But she’s gone, and Agatha is alone with her maids. 

Cringing, she turns her attention to them. She’d spent half a year with the four girls, and barely paid attention to them. _Gremlaine’s minions,_ she’d thought, and so she’d avoided them. She’d not even noticed how young they clearly are; fourteen or fifteen, most of them. Younger than some of the first years at Good.

“Um… hello. It’s, er... nice to… to see you again...”

She trails off, hating the inadequacy of the statement. They smile politely, and say nothing. Agatha suspects they do not actually agree. She doesn’t blame them.

“Um, listen,” she says awkwardly. “I know we kind of… got off on the wrong foot, last year. Well. By _we,_ I kind of mean _me_ … um...” 

They stare at her, smiles not budging an inch. Agatha takes a deep breath. 

“I guess what I’m trying to say is... I’m sorry for being so dismissive of you. If we’re gonna be stuck together every day, from now on… well, maybe we can have a fresh start? I don’t think I ever even asked your names.”

Absently, she tries to take her hat off, remembers it’s pinned into her hair, and gives up after stabbing herself in the scalp with a hairpin. 

The four maids look at each other.

* * *

_Peach_ is called Claudia and she’s from Jaunt Jolie. _Pistachio_ is Marilyn and she was born in Kingdom Kyrigos, but moved to Camelot when she was five. _Grapefruit_ (Yadira) and _Rose_ (Alice) are both from Maidenvale. All four of them are minor noblemen’s daughters, sent to the Camelot court in order to try and elevate the family’s status-- in fact, Claudia is Bettina’s second cousin. None of them expected to get the job. 

“I did _terribly_ in the diplomacy exam.” admits Marilyn as they leave Blue Tower and make for Gold. A stray curl is poking out of the side of her headpiece, and she walks in an odd, wobbly line-- she keeps crossing Agatha’s path and nearly tripping her up, wandering off at random. “I couldn’t stop giggling after a nobleman fell off the dais. I tried to hide behind Claudia, but they still failed me.”

_“And_ you dragged my rank down.” said Claudia crossly, pale cheeks flaming. 

“I said sorry!”

“She didn’t.” mumbles Alice. Marilyn frowns at her. 

“I did! And _you_ got marked down for making snide comments behind the Duke’s back!”

Alice shrugs, uncaring.

“He was being a git, so I said so.” 

Yadira, who’s been walking silently behind, suddenly takes both Alice and Agatha by the shoulders and steers them firmly around a wet patch of paint on the floor that they’d both failed to notice. 

“Oh, thank you--” Agatha looks up, frowning. “Wait, you had to do… _exams?”_

“We were assessed for competency, yes.” says Yadira calmly as the other three start bickering in front. “Working in the household of royalty requires a certain amount of specific knowledge. It’s a little like your Princess Etiquette lessons.”

“Oh, yeah. Them.” Agatha squints unenthusiastically. “They were… uh. Yeah.”

“I bet you did great!” says Marilyn encouragingly. 

Months of broken eggs, fallen books, shouting Professors and failed quizzes flash in Agatha’s vision. 

“...um.”

Alice snorts. 

“Marilyn, she doesn’t even know the difference between silk and taffeta, there’s no _way_ she did well.” She glances at Agatha briefly. “No offence, your highness.”

Agatha stares at her, amused. 

“Yeah, um-- no, you’re right, I did terribly for most of the year.”

_“Alice!”_

“What? She agreed!”

“You can’t just--”

Agatha realises, then, that she has deliberately been given her the worst maids that could be found. With the exception of Yadira, who seems to be holding the entire operation together, they’re all absolutely atypical of Queen’s ladies-- confrontational, too easily amused, cynical… Probably courtesy of the Mistral Sisters, or Gremlaine. Meant to be a slight.

But since Agatha herself was so incompetent, it had taken her a year to realise it. 

Trying her best not to laugh, and finding herself suddenly much more fond of her maids, she follows them down the hall to prep for dinner. 

* * *

Despite Tisiphone’s scepticism, Tedros looks healthier. She thinks.

It’s hard to tell, since they’ve been seated at opposite ends of the bloody great dining table. Despite being the only two people eating in here. 

Agatha waits until the maids and servers are gone, stands up, and starts dragging her chair down the long, empty table, letting it screech along the flagstones. She dumps it on Tedros’s left, goes to get her plate, and sits down next to him. 

“Hi,” she says, yanking the hatpins out and throwing them onto the table with metallic clatters. One lands in her goblet of wine and she fishes it out. 

“Hello.” says Tedros, looking faintly baffled. “Why are you dressed like… that?”

“Oh, don’t even ask.” Agatha wrestles the hat off her head and throws it after the pins. “Don’t I look like a really stupid french fancy?”

“I didn’t say that. I just thought it wasn’t something you’d wear on purpose.”

“Astute, for I did not dress myself this morning. And very _noble,_ my love, but I look like five pencils glued together and it makes my ass look flat. Anemone is trying to live vicariously through me, and didn’t really care whether I looked dumb or not. You better have secured me a better wardrobe. With fewer pastels.”

“Tisiphone has.” says Tedros, not concealing his amusement very well. “Think it’s mostly dark colours.”

“Good.” Agatha picks up her fork and prods one of the weird parcels on her plate warily. “What’s this?”

“Pasta.”

Agatha stabs it so enthusiastically she accidentally rips most of it. 

Tedros does laugh at her, this time. 

“Never seen it before?”

“No.” Agatha chews thoughtfully. “Some fancy royal pasta. It’s good, though. What’s in it?

“Some kind of meat. Dunno. Didn’t ask. Silkima nearly exploded when I asked her to do pasta, so I didn’t want to risk a second death, this time by ladle.” 

Since regaining the ability to talk, Tedros has taken to making dark jokes. Agatha usually just stares at him until he relents.

“Still traumatised by my eating habits, is she?” she says, ignoring this particular one.

“Clearly.” 

But Tisiphone is right; Tedros is still twitchy. He’s less pinched in the face, and has put a bit of weight on, but not nearly enough. She can see his knife shaking in his hand, and his leg is bouncing under the table, and keeps crashing into hers.

As she eats, Agatha’s mind wanders back to her conversation with her cousin. It doesn’t make sense why a Never would take the same perspective on Tedros as the stuffy nobles. Surely she has a clear enough perception of Agatha to know that she’s going to fail miserably at trying to be queenly. But she’d ignored her when she’d tried to tell her so. Damned Nevers. Hester and Anadil were the same; they didn’t care _how_ the objective was accomplished, only that it was. If Agatha embarrassed herself every day, she was still succeeding. It didn’t matter to Tisiphone. She was just there to be a distraction...

Tedros has stopped eating. He’s picking the skin on his thumb. Agatha stabs him in the hand with her fork, not exactly lightly, and he stops.

“What are you thinking about?” he says. The thinner state of his face makes his eyes look bigger than usual, more owlish, and he’s peering hopefully at her. 

Looking for a distraction. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me I have relatives in the Woods.” says Agatha sternly, through a mouthful of pasta.

Tedros reddens indignantly, and Agatha grins to herself. 

“I thought you knew! How _didn’t_ you?”

“Well, no one ever told me, and until a few years ago I didn’t even know my mother was from Netherwood. Then we nearly died like, fifty times, so forgive me for not pursuing the matter.”

Tedros huffs. 

“Well, what did you think of her?”

“I like her.” Agatha says, immediately. “She’s no-nonsense.”

“I thought you would.” mutters Tedros. Agatha squints at him.

“Don’t you?”

“Oh, I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have offered her the position. I don’t think she likes me, though.”

Agatha considers this. 

“I don’t think that’s true. I just think she enjoys being haughty.”

Tedros sniffs, stabbing at his plate half-heartedly. 

“Well, she would. The Wardwell Clan are like that. They came to a Peace Ball when I was about seven, I spent most of my time hiding from them. Iphigenia Wardwell…” he shudders. “Even my father looked scared.”

“Who’s that?” frowns Agatha. Tedros blinks. 

“She must be your grandmother, I suppose. She’s the matriarch of the family. Hardly ever shows up in public, so it was a big deal that she came along. There’s rumours she’s got Seer blood. The big four families all do, though.”

Agatha stares at him, bewildered. 

“Who-- _what?”_

“Right, I always forget there’s stuff you don’t know-- um, there’s four massively powerful and ancient families that have been kicking around in the Woods for centuries. You know people from all of them. The Saders, originally from Ginnymill, who are primarily Seers. Then the Mistrals, originally from Ravenswood, who are mostly sorcerers--”

“Rafal? And the Mistral Sisters?”

“Yeah, them. Then the Pendragons, from Camelot--” he indicated himself. “Mostly… I dunno. Too big for our boots? Father always said we bred good knights, which was code for _we’re shit at everything else_. Mostly we just cause problems, I think.”

Agatha snorts. 

“And the Wardwells, from Netherwood.” he indicates her. “Mostly alchemists and potion-makers.”

“Potions?” Agatha thinks back to her mother. “... guess that doesn’t translate to cooking.”

“Not entirely convinced that your mother wasn’t feeding me mild poison whilst I was in Gavaldon.” agrees Tedros. “Never had such bad acne.”

“Hmm.” Agatha mulls it over. “Maybe her food _was_ verging on potions. I never really got ill, as a child.”

They eat in silence for a bit. Then Tedros says;

“Tisiphone said that the Wardwell Clan claiming you would make our marriage more agreeable to nobility. Both Ever and Never. Since they’re so powerful.” 

“I’m not blood related to them, though.” warns Agatha. “Don’t get excited.” 

“I don’t think most of them are actual blood relations.” says Tedros. “They all look completely different. As far as I can tell, the only actual blood relations are Iphigenia and her daughters, and then Ismene’s kids-- Tisiphone and her brothers. Everyone else seems to have just been… acquired?”

“Oh.” Agatha perks up. “Really?”

“Blood of the covenant, and all that.”

“Yeah.” Agatha looks thoughtfully at her plate. “Yeah, that’s right.”

* * *

Later, Agatha wakes up halfway through the night with the distinct impression there’s a reason she’s awake--

She opens her eyes, realising there’s a light in the corner of her vision, and has to squint. What is it? She thinks maybe a fingerglow--

Once her vision unblurs, she finds Tedros’s face an inch from hers.

Agatha jumps so hard she accidentally thumps him in the chest. 

“ _Christ!”_

“Ow.”

“What are you doing?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Didn’t you learn from last time?” hisses Agatha. “Want me to try and stab you again?”

Tedros doesn’t reply, clambering over her legs.

“There’s no _way_ you’re allowed to be here.” mutters Agatha, shuffling to the side to make room. 

Tedros ignores her again, putting his fingerglow out and wriggling under the duvet with her, dropping face-first onto her pillow. 

“Why are your feet so _cold?”_ demands Agatha.

“Why are you wearing stockings?” comes the muffled reply.

“I get chilblains, asshole. I have poor circulation, and this castle is draughty.”

“Stop kicking me.”

“Do you want me to move up, or not?”

Tedros huffs dramatically. Agatha considers smothering him with the stolen pillow. They’ve yet to reach a proper compromise about sleeping in the same bed; Tedros is wriggly and seems to take about thirty years to get comfortable, and Agatha is so light a sleeper that every time he moves, he wakes her up. 

Managing to have domestics, and they’re not even married yet.

Scowling, Agatha rolls away from him. Apparently still being fragile doesn’t mean he’s unable to annoy her. 

As expected, Tedros fidgets for at least twenty minutes. He eventually settles on lying on his back, almost completely buried under the duvet, but he keeps _moving,_ even then-- reaching up to scratch his face or something. One of his feet is wedged in-between her calves, and he keeps twitching.

Sighing, Agatha sits up, intending to get a drink--

But when she lights her fingerglow, she notices a dark smudge on her pillow. 

_“Tedros,_ are you bleeding?”

Tedros mumbles something indistinct. Agatha grabs him.

_“Tedros.”_

“Only a lil’ bit… not bad--”

Agatha knows what he’s done. 

“You’ve clawed at your neck again.”

Tedros doesn’t say anything. _Now_ the lack of responses and the sudden appearance make sense. He’d done this at the school, too; having a nightmare and clawing his own neck to shreds in his sleep. Usually, she’d been able to stop him, waking up when he started getting agitated and heading him off, but since they’ve been sleeping separately…

Agatha had _told_ them that keeping her behind was a bad idea. 

Stupid bastards. 

Now regretting getting annoyed at him, Agatha leans over. 

“Let me see.” she says, softening her tone. “It’ll go weird and disgusting if you leave it. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Tedros mutters something about it being _just a scratch_ and how it _doesn’t matter,_ but it clearly does matter, and he slowly sits up. 

Agatha drags him into the bathroom and lights a couple of candles with the endless supply of matches in her pockets, creating enough light to examine his neck with. For once, he’s mostly right; they’re shallow scratches, skin broken but not bleeding badly, apart from where he’s clipped the scar, which is still easily irritated, and bleeds worse. She rifles through her bathroom cabinet, which Tisiphone seems to have had stocked with actually useful things, and finds antiseptic to clean them with. She makes a small dressing for the worst one. To her surprise, Tedros doesn’t flinch or try to duck away. He scuffs his bare feet on the tiles and fiddles with her hair, and Agatha lets him. He picks his bloodied nails. Agatha gives him a nail brush and he aggressively scrubs them clean. She crouches on her haunches and cuts his nails for him, because his hands are shaking too badly for it. 

In the end, the silence gets cloying. Agatha is generally content with quiet, but since Tedros is usually chatty, she gets uncomfortable when he’s silent. She hadn’t enjoyed the period where he’d not been able to talk. She’d spent far too much time blathering to fill the silence, like she’s doing now.

“I like your hands,” she says mildly, just for something to say. She turns them over to examine his palms. “You should wear rings, or something.”

“I’ll wear _your_ ring.” mumbles Tedros, nudging her with his foot. “When we get married.”

Agatha blinks at him. It had only vaguely occurred to her that she was also going to give Tedros a ring. Everyone spent so long blabbering on about the _King’s_ and who wore that. 

Clearly Tedros has been thinking about it, though. 

“Yeah,” she says faintly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

She turns his hand over again and kisses his knuckles. 

Tedros smiles at her, even though the candlelight makes him look skeletal. 

“It’s your birthday, soon.” he says. “In what… a month and a half?”

“Sure is.” Agatha stands up and stretches. “Get to be officially older than you, again.”

“Need to get you something,” says Tedros. 

“No, you don’t.” yawns Agatha, wandering back into her bedroom. As expected, Tedros follows her, a hint of indignation appearing. 

“I do.”

“Why?” Agatha scours the blood out of her pillow with her fingerglow and retrieves _Dismemberment in Drupathi_ from her bedside table. Affronted, Tedros scrabbles after her, as Agatha had wanted him to. A distraction.

“Because you’re my fiancée, and I love you, and I want to get you a birthday present?”

“Well, when you put it like that.” says Agatha. She sits against the headboard and tries to find her page.

Tedros seems displeased that’s all she has to say and frowns, dropping down next to her legs. Agatha pretends to be engrossed in the passage about the Duke being stabbed 23 times, like Caesar. But she’s actually watching him-- shuffling furtively closer to her, trying to ascertain whether he’s going to be rejected or not. 

He’s not, and he seems to realise that when he puts his head on her thigh and isn’t shoved away.

“’s a horrible book, that.” he says vaguely, after a while. 

“How would you know? Your eyes are shut.”

“Me ‘n’ Tarquin did a dramatic reading of it in first year. Like... _three_ people passed out.”

Agatha snorts and turns a page, knowing he’s too tired to argue with her.

“Well, I like it.” 

“Morbid.” Tedros mumbles. Agatha runs her hand through his hair. 

“Sure.”

He doesn’t reply, and his breathing levels out not long after. Agatha sits for a while with her hand on his head, staring unseeingly at her book. She’d practically made the resolution this morning, she realises, with her rebuttal against etiquette, with her acid attitude and bad temper. Tisiphone is right. She needs to be a distraction. And a purposeful one, at that. She’s got the perfect vehicle to do it, too; her _duties._ She told Tisiphone she was going to mess them up. Why doesn’t she just... do it on purpose? There’s no hope of her doing it properly, so she may as well just… give up.

Tedros’s hands shift slightly and Agatha immediately moves them, knowing the warning signs when she sees them. She watches him for a moment, tense, but he’s settled. 

Yes, that’s what she’ll do. She might be a good fiancée, but she’s going to be a terrible, _terrible_ Princess/Queen/object of media attention. 

By the _Royal Rot’s_ standards, anyway.

* * *

“When meeting these prospective Good students, remember that Camelot nobles train their children in the curriculum from birth, to give them the best chance of being accepted.” Tisiphone tells Agatha as the carriage rattles through Maker’s Market. “So, they already know a lot. Usually, former students or professors tutor them up until they’re fifteen and can apply.”

Agatha thinks she knows why there were some distinct gaps in Tedros’s abilities, at school. Clearly no one had got to Good Deeds with him before the four alumni in his family either fled or died. 

“...right.” she frowns. “Wait, _former_ Professors? I thought a teaching job at the School was for life.”

“It is.” says Tisiphone. “So any former professors that are around have either been fired, disgraced, or fled. It’s more sensible to use former students, which is why they’ve asked for you.”

“...they know my education was a bit _fragmented_ , right?”

Alice snorts. Claudia and Marilyn elbow her from opposing sides. 

“Not sure.” Tisiphone flips through her notes. “Maybe you need to tell them so.”

Agatha takes the hint. This is her first chance at drawing attention. 

“And there’s going to be… reporters there?”

“Probably.” says her cousin. “And lots of nobles.”

Agatha looks down at herself-- black gloves, burgundy gown with black undergown, matching hat, and a jet necklace Tedros had proudly presented her with this morning. Lovely and gothic. Not at all like anything Gremlaine had ever made her wear. 

“Thanks for the prewarning.” she says mildly. 

Tisiphone smirks into her papers. 

* * *

The Good hopefuls are probably about thirteen-- they won’t be able to go for another two years, until the current cohort are fourth years. Agatha eyes them apprehensively as she’s ushered to the front of the drawing room, which has been renovated to look like a classroom. They sit ramrod straight at their desks, staring intently at her. They’re all dressed in pink and blue, in an odd, archaic mock-up of the Good uniform-- too many petticoats and fascinators and ruffles to be accurate to the current uniform, which Sophie has made blindingly modern.

She’s been introduced to all of them, but their names have immediately blurred together in her head in a jumble of _something-lyn_ and _something-Rose_ and _maybe he’s called Julius? Or Dominic._ She can’t remember any of them… with the exception of the two boys named _Tedros_ at the back, who are creeping her out. Allegedly there’s hundreds of boys in the kingdom (and the Woods) named after him, which is frankly scary. One of them has bleached his hair. 

She makes a mental note to report this to _her_ Tedros, who probably won’t appreciate the knowledge, but she’s going to impart it anyway. 

“--here at Baughan Prep School for Evers, we _firmly_ practice discipline.” The woman who’d shown her in is twittering, mostly to the reporters standing around the back wall. Agatha thinks she’s the mother of one of the Tedroses. She doesn’t like her. “So, we’re going to go around the room and each take a turn to ask the Princess a question, chosen from a shortlist that the children and their tutor made yesterday!”

Carefully selected to make them look good, then. Agatha sighs internally and tries to look attentive as the first girl opens her mouth--

The door bashes open and the reporters scuttle aside to make room for the immense polar bear body of--

_“Terribly_ sorry I’m late Lucinda, I had to reply to a letter from my bro--”

Pollux looks up, sees Agatha, and stops mid sentence. 

“...ah.” he says. “You’re already here. How-- how nice to see you. Dear.” he adds as an afterthought. As if he ever liked her. 

He forces a smile. Agatha makes a similarly forced attempt. They probably both look like they’re trying to pass kidney stones. 

It’s very clear to absolutely anyone with eyes and a brain that they hate each other.

_Shit shit shit shit why is he here what the hell--_ says Agatha’s brain. 

“...yeah, really nice to see you, Professor.” says Agatha’s mouth, even though Pollux would sell her to the Devil on a whim, and she would chop him up and make her mother’s Mystery Meat Stew with him equally willingly. 

Pollux lumbers to the front of the room and nearly shunts her off her chair with his polar bear rear, as he tries to also fit behind the desk. Agatha deliberately bashes him in the snout with the brim of her hat when she sits back up. 

“How come you’re working here, now?” she asks, deliberately pointedly. 

Pollux’s lips curl.

“I wanted to forge my own path. Away from my brother.”

“How nice.” says Agatha blandly. “I’m sure you’ll do even better with these kids than you did with us.”

“Yes,” says Pollux tightly. “Your class was a lovely mix of natural talent and _unexercised potential._ Whereas these children are all naturally talented.”

“How undemanding.” says Agatha acidly. 

She turns away and finds the kids are staring. 

“Who’s first?” she says brightly. 

* * *

As predicted, the questions are full of shit-- _what are your top ten tips for success?_ (“Uh, do your homework.”) and _how do I get a girl to say yes to being my Snow Ball date?_ (“Maybe um… be nice to her? Genuinely?”) and _are Quests really hard?_ (“...yes.”)

“What is it like, having roommates?” asks one of the blonde girls at the front. “I can’t _imagine_ sharing my room. Is it hard?”

“Uh, don’t know.” admits Agatha. “I didn’t have any.”

The girl gasps. 

_“Really?_ How did you convince them to let you have your own room?”

Agatha looks into her earnest, spoiled little face and thinks telling her _I was so ugly they were scared of me_ will probably kill her on the spot. 

“Um… I didn’t, my roommates just… moved out. They wanted to… er, room with other people.”

“Oh!”

The woman who’s moderating all of this-- Lucinda, Mother of Tedros But Not _Agatha’s_ Tedros-- rushes her on, and the next girl bolts right upright, smiles widely, and asks;

“Did your Princess Etiquette lessons prepare you for being a real Princess?” 

Pollux snorts. Loudly. 

Everyone turns and stares at him. 

Agatha, who is hungry and in a bad mood and wants to stomp home and complain to Tedros, turns bad-temperedly to him. 

“Why don’t _you_ give your report on my Princess Etiquette proficiency, since you taught me? _Professor?”_

Pollux’s eyes light with a distinctly venomous fire. 

_“_ Oh, if you _insist,”_ he says, with some relish. “Where to start?”

Thinking she may have accidentally enabled him, Agatha shoots a nervous glance around the room. Everyone is smiling politely, clearly still under the impression this is a civil exchange. 

“Well, I had absolutely _no_ hope in you at first.” Pollux begins immediately. Agatha gets the impression he’s gearing up for something big. “All those beautiful birds that would never have life, because your posture was akin to that of a giraffe with scoliosis.” 

“Um. Is that a joke?”

Pollux ignores her. 

“Your inability to do simple tasks that all of your classmates could do in their sleep was incredibly trying. I suppose you did learn quickly, when you actually _tried,_ but you could have looked like you were enjoying it.”

“I found it difficult.” frowns Agatha. 

“I could tell.” says Pollux grimly. “Anyway--”

“Hang on, you can’t compare me to your other students, I didn’t grow up in a bloody great mansion--”

“You barely grew up in a _house,_ as far as I can tell--”

_“Hey!”_

“I’m _talking,_ Agatha--”

“You can call me _your highness_ if you’re going to be like this--”

“I will _not_ refer to a former student so reverentially!”

“You were perfectly happy to kiss Tedros’s arse last year--!” 

“This is why I consistently _failed_ you!” squawks Pollux. “Your _plebeian_ lack of _discipline!_ You complain about not having roommates, but I’m hardly surprised you were an outcast in the first year, you were a _terrible_ student! Always talking back and biting your nails and-- and-- _stomping!_ And laughing in lectures! I’m not surprised your classmates didn’t like you!”

Someone at the back giggles. One of the _Rot_ reporters. 

For a second, Agatha feels fifteen again, in the hostile splendour of Good, pinned by the gaze of her prim, perfumed classmates. 

Pollux takes a breath--

_“Me?_ No one likes _you!”_ Agatha barks back, suddenly furious. “That’s why you got _fired!_ Because you’re _insufferable!_ Your own _brother_ can’t stand you! _”_

Tisiphone has had to turn away to conceal her glee. Claudia and Marilyn are gawking at her. Alice and Yadira are determinedly po-faced. Agatha hears the aggressive scribbling of quills happening at the back of the room, that indicates the reporters are having the time of their lives.

“Oh, never in my _life--”_ Pollux takes a dramatic, shuddering breath. Agatha resists the urge to take one of her hatpins to his face like a dagger. “This is why I _warned_ Tedros not to marry you! I came to him before he left and I said, _my lord, unless you want a miserable marriage, a divorce, and an early death, you ought to reconsider your choice of Agatha as your bride--”_

_“WHAT?”_ shouts Agatha, but Pollux is still ranting;

“My most famous student in 20 years, and you manage to go four years without learning _anything!_ You’re just as pathetically _inept_ as you were when you first stomped into my lesson four years ago in those horrible so-called _shoes!”_ He gestures furiously at Agatha’s clumps, visible under the table.

“Maybe you should have been a better teacher! All we did was quizzes and get shouted at!”

“Maybe if _you_ had been raised properly--”

Agatha and Tisiphone both stand up at the same time. 

* * *

“I had a fight with Pollux.” says Agatha that night, barging the door to Tedros’s bedroom open. 

Tedros rolls over to stare incredulously at her. 

“How did you get in here? And what’s that?”

“The passage in the belfry that leads into the parlour. The one that Lucian IV used so he could have affairs.”

“...right. And the box?”

“Pilfered some fancy chocolates from Silkima.”

“..he really upset you, huh?”

Agatha grunts and shunts him aside to sit on her usual side of the bed. Technically, neither of them are supposed to be sleeping in the other’s room, but no one has bothered to tell them off for it-- Tedros’s manservants think it’s funny, Agatha’s maids think it’s cute, and Tisiphone doesn’t give a shit. 

“Why was Pollux even there?” demands Tedros. 

“He’s their tutor now, ‘cause he got fired from Good.” says Agatha, ripping the lid off the box. “So he has to find someone else to bootlick. He started harping on about me being bad at Princess Etiquette, so I told him he was a lousy teacher, and it escalated so I shouted at him and knocked his head off.”

“Suppose his head is _meant_ to come off.” Tedros takes the strawberry ones she doesn’t like whilst Agatha shovels orange creams into her mouth. Agatha shoots him a _look,_ the power of which is somewhat diminished by the amount of chocolate wedged in her cheeks. Tedros rolls his eyes at her.

“There were some kids named after you.” remembers Agatha, changing the subject. Tedros stops with a mint chocolate halfway to his mouth. 

“Oh. Oh _no.”_

“Oh _yes._ One of them had bleached his hair.”

Tedros shakes his head wearily. 

“I hate that. So much.”

“Allegedly there’s loads of them. Have you never met any of them?”

“No, and I hope never to.”

Agatha takes a breath. 

“Can’t you just tell me more about fighting with Pollux?” begs Tedros. Agatha shrugs.

“Fine. Got asked about Princess Etiquette and he snorted _so_ loudly, which is how the whole thing started. Shouting at him was kinda cathartic, though.” Agatha swallows her mouthful and goes for the praline. “Would have just got turned into a toad if I’d gone off at him like that at school. But now, he can’t get at me.” she pats Tedros’s chest. “You’ve given me immunity.”

Tedros eyes her. 

“Well, he can go to the press.”

“Suppose so.” says Agatha, trying to look like that’s a bad thing and not the purpose of her pissing Pollux off in the first place. “But the _Rot_ have been after me for months now. What’s new?”

“Right now, they’re on my back about various things.”

Agatha goes onto the second layer of chocolates. 

“Well,” she says, trying not to look too pleased with herself. “Maybe I’ve just changed that.”

* * *

Agatha had always thought _promenade_ was a synonym for _walk,_ but fancy and extremely slow.

As it turns out, it’s actually a synonym for _walking lecture from ancient court ladies who do not like you and think you’re an embarrassment._

When the first comment she’s confronted with is _my goodness, you’re so... tall,_ she knows she’s in for a bad day. 

They walk in the rose garden and make Agatha uncomfortable for two hours. The topics of conversation range from what she wants her wedding dress to look like (she doesn’t really know), how she _should_ have handled the Pollux situation (she should have been a _nice girl,_ apparently) to avoid today's _Rot_ headline (which is **_PRINCESS VS PROFESSOR PUNCH-UP)_ **and, once they seem to realise Agatha is not sorry for shouting at Pollux, plenty of unsolicited advice on her upcoming marriage. 

“If you’re getting married in eighteen months or so,” says one of the baronesses, counting on wizened fingers. “That means we can expect an heir when you’re what… twenty?”

“Er,” says Agatha. “No? We-- that’s not-- _no.”_

The woman looks her up and down. 

“Mm,” she says. “I _can_ see why the King would be reluctant.”

Agatha gawks at her. 

She doesn’t look remotely abashed. 

“Why don’t you ask your sister for some tips?” she says sweetly. 

Agatha has a brief, violent internal struggle in which she considers forcing Sophie to wear a bag over her head for the rest of her life, or maybe wearing a bag over her _own_ head for the rest of _her_ life.

“I--” she manages, then stops herself and tries again. “I don’t… _want_ kids. Yet, anyway. I’m not even eighteen.”

“Maybe not, Princess, but the kingdom needs heirs.”

“If I provide children before I provide a stable social structure and welfare state, they won’t have a kingdom to _inherit.”_ says Agatha sharply. 

They seem to go temporarily deaf, and bustle ahead to look at some roses. Agatha grinds her teeth and slopes after them, her maids following behind with nervous glances. 

After twenty more minutes of jabbering about _being_ _servile,_ wearing a proper girdle, how she should stop snorting when she laughs, and _when are you going to start referring to the King in a proper manner? I know you’re used to being classmates, but you really ought to call him ‘my lord’, myself and the Duchess here overheard you call him something ever so improper the other day, you were very lucky he didn’t mind…_ it’s not really surprising that Agatha loses her temper.

“Queen Igraine always used to curtsey to her husband when he entered the room, no matter if they were in company or not.” says someone airily. 

“Was that to hide the fact she didn’t like him?” says Agatha loudly.  
Everyone turns to stare at her.

“What?” says Agatha. “Is she not the one who was tricked into being Uther’s queen?”

There’s some awkward muttering and everyone turns back around. Then the lady who’d hounded her about children turns back;

“Princess, has the King ever spoken to you about your… attitude?”

Agatha, who basically says all the things Tedros would say if he wasn’t bound by chivalry, diplomacy, and being polite, shrugs. 

“No.”

“He’s not… dismayed?”

“Don’t think so.” says Agatha innocently. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m just… a little concerned.”

“About what?”

“Well, we did wonder if Professor Pollux… had a point.”

“Oh.” Agatha thinks back to Tedros threatening to stuff and mount Pollux’s head, the night before. “Well, Tedros didn’t agree with him.”

“I’m sure that’s what he told you, dear.”

Agatha turns furiously--

“Queen Guinevere had the King at 22.” says one of the elderly ladies dreamily.

“Another comment and I’m going to start putting the age I’m willing to have children up.” snaps Agatha.

“But--”

“22? Alright.”

“Princess, you’re being childish--”

“Ironic, really. 23!”

“You really ought to consider--”

“24, then--”

She gets up to 28 before they decide to go back inside. 

* * *

It continues on; a spiral of going to events, fucking them up just enough to make the papers, and going home. The _Royal Rot’s_ Saturday headline is an absolute cracker. 

**WORST QUEEN EVER?**

**Multiple palace sources say Princess Agatha is “incompetent”, “disrespectful”, and “uncouth”. Our Royalty editor, Edward Persians, weighs in.**

Spoiler: he does, in fact, agree that Agatha is on track to becoming the Worst Queen Ever. 

Agatha and Tisiphone high-five at breakfast, and it’s funny for about two hours until Agatha notices all the nobles staring resentfully at her, and starts to get cold feet.

Although their scheme is inarguably effective, it’s starting to grate. It was funny, at first. Now seeing increasingly unflattering headlines and cartoons of herself every day is… not that fun. It’s a little bit fun. But it’s getting uncomfortable. Maybe she _should_ make an effort. Tisiphone’s scheme is working, for now, but surely Agatha is eventually going to reflect on Tedros badly? 

But then again, she was messing them up even when she _was_ making an effort. So maybe, to maintain her dignity, and a shred of self esteem, messing them up on purpose is the better option. 

Even if it means verbal battles with idiots every day, and being enthusiastically insulted by the _Rot,_ and subtly criticised by all of the other publications, and having the servants stare at her and the courtiers laughing and--

Agatha goes to sulk in the library with the sequel to _Dismemberment in Drupathi,_ which is called _Violence in Vulture Vale_. It’s not as good, but sequels never are. At least it has that scene where the governess gets trapped in an ice coffin and then-- 

Someone shoves cold hands down the back of her collar. 

_“Shitting hell--!_ Oh, it’s you.” Agatha lowers the book, having been about to swing wildly in Tedros’s direction. “Did you have to do that?”

“It’s your own fault for reading that horrible book.”

“No, it’s not. What do you want?”

“You’re avoiding me. That’s not allowed anymore.” Tedros tries to cram himself into the alcove, finds he’s too broad in the shoulders for that to work, so tries to sit on her. Agatha shoves him onto the rug. 

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“You are.”

Agatha changes the subject, knowing he’s right. She’s been going straight to bed after dinner, these past few nights. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing something actually important?”

“No, not really.” Tedros tries to look dignified from the floor. “They think I’m fragile or something, so they’re making me do the bare minimum.”

Agatha looks at him. 

“If you’re about to say you agree, just remember you bodily shoved me onto the floor about twenty seconds ago.” warns Tedros. 

“You’re not _physically_ fragile.” 

“Maybe I am. Maybe my head will just _fall off.”_

He widens his eyes dramatically, which just makes him look even more unwell. Agatha eyes his wet hair and thinks he must have been in the pool, which is a terrible idea, because he’s nowhere near strong enough to return to his horrible insane workout routines, yet. 

“Shut up.” says Agatha.

“Peekaboo.”

Somewhat aggressively, Agatha mimes stomping on his stomach. He grabs her by the ankle and yanks her out of the window seat. Agatha falls on him on purpose, and they have a brief fight on the floor until Tedros manages to pin her down by sitting on her back. 

“I know you’re sulking.” says Tedros, with an irritatingly superior tone. 

_“Do_ you.” says Agatha.

“Yes.” says Tedros. “Which is weird, because I thought _you_ thought it was funny.”

A pause. 

Agatha sighs, then realises she can’t really get her breath back, and wallops Tedros until he gets off. She remains lying on her face next to the fireplace, though. Tedros starts building a tower of books between them.

“You’re not annoyed I’m being a shit queen, are you?” Agatha asks finally.

“Hmm?” Tedros looks up from the book he’s got open. “What? No. I just thought you were upset.”

“I’m not upset if _you’re_ not upset.”

“I’m not. I’m enjoying hearing you saying all the things I secretly want to say.”

“Well, then.” Agatha puts her head back down on the rug again. 

A pause.

Tedros puts the book on her back.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing, my revered lord?” yawns Agatha. 

“...don’t call me that.”

“Tell that to the Baroness of Invasive Suggestions. Or whatever her actual name is.”

“I will. No, I know that you’re deliberately causing media scandals to take the attention off of me.”

_“What?”_ Agatha sits up and nearly pitches _The Secret Garden_ into the fire. “How?”

“I was childhood friends with Marilyn.”

“And she _snitched_ to you? When?”

“The other day.” Tedros put his hands behind his head. “To be fair, I had a pretty big inkling anyway.”

“...right.” Agatha glances at him. “And your opinion on it is…?”

Tedros swings his hand vaguely in her direction until he catches her sleeve, pulls her down and kisses her. Clearly he considers that an acceptable answer, and so does Agatha.

They knock over the pile of books and nearly set _Don Juan_ on fire.

* * *

“I got you a present.” says Tedros later, in his sitting room. Agatha looks suspiciously at him from behind her notes.

“It’s not my birthday yet. Unless it’s going to help me kill this _Rot_ reporter before he turns up to talk to me tomorrow--”

“No, it’s not going to help you murder a reporter.” sighs Tedros. “But Tisiphone got hold of it today, and I thought you’d be annoyed if I kept it back until your birthday.”

He produces a box from behind the sofa. 

“Tisiphone? What’s she got to do with anything?”

“Open it.”

Confused, Agatha does. It’s just full of… stuff. Nice stuff; vintage spellbooks, old woolen coats, gloves, cloaks, parchment. But stuff nonetheless.

“What’s this?” she frowns. 

“Tisiphone sent for it, from her family.” 

When Agatha still looks blank, head swimming with interview notes, Tedros leans over and pulls out a shirt, embroidered badly with moons on the breast pocket. He flips up the collar, exposing the initials stitched into it.

_CW._

Agatha’s heart stops. 

“This is-- this--”

Suddenly fevered, she combs through it all. It’s all hers. 

_Property of Callis Wardwell, Malice 15,_ in the front of spellbooks, random doodles of witches and cauldrons in Uglification notes, a mixture of nice and horribly ugly clothes, an application to the School for Evil in scribbly, familiar handwriting--

And one letter.

_Dear Mother, Eris and Ismene,_

_I won’t be able to write again after this. It’s a huge risk just to send this letter, so I hope it gets there. I’ve fled Rafal and gone into hiding. Can’t tell you where, in case this letter is intercepted, but you won’t be able to reach me, so don’t even try; tracing this letter will just lead you in circles. I’m sorry, and I know you’re going to be angry, but it’s safer this way. I know you think you can protect me, but you can’t. Not from him. Perhaps I’ll be able to return one day, but I doubt it._

_Still, I’ve managed to make a decent life for myself. You’d all be horrified by the supposed squalor, but I don’t really mind. I’m working as the town healer, and while these villagers don’t trust me, they can’t deny I’m much better than any other doctor or healer they have, so they come to me anyway._

_And it’s not just me and Reaper, anymore; I have a child, now._

Agatha’s heart leaps into her mouth.

_A daughter. I called her Agatha, keeping with the naming traditions in this family. No, she’s not my biological daughter, but she may as well be. Her “proper” mother is more of a witch than I am. It’s a long and complicated story, but she had twins and rejected the younger girl, saying I should leave her in the woods to die. I looked into her face, and I realised I couldn’t ever kill such a beautiful child. So I kept her._

_I hope one day you can meet her, and you’ll love her as much as I do._

_With love, and apologies,_

_Callis_

With shaking hands, Agatha sets the letter down and picks up one of the coats. When she pulls it out of the box, she catches the faintest scent of ginger--

And bursts into tears.

She buries her face in the collar, feeling Tedros’s arms slide around her waist. How could she have ever considered being a good, pliable Queen? This ridiculous, bullshit plan was the exact sort of thing Callis would have laughed herself senseless at. Her skinny, shrewd daughter making a mockery of the most prestigious position in the Woods. On _purpose._ She’d have been ecstatic. 

“I’m sorry,” says Tedros tentatively, “Should I not have--”

“No, it’s fine,” coughs Agatha, accepting his offer of a handkerchief. “I just-- don’t have anything of hers, I didn’t think I’d get anything-- I need to thank Tisiphone--”

* * *

She does. 

“I see you liked it-- do _not_ hug me--”

“Sorry.” Agatha pulls back and clears her throat. “Yes, I liked it. Um-- yeah. Thank you.”

Tisiphone shrugs carelessly, but Agatha can see a small smile playing on the corner of her mouth. 

“It was no problem. Eris was more than ready to go through your mother’s things. Think she was being nosey, as well as helpful.” she pauses. “They want to meet you.”

“Oh.” Agatha blinks. “When?”

“Well, they’re demanding that they get to sit on your side at the wedding--”

“They can do that.” says Agatha. 

“Yes, I told them that would be fine. But sooner than that. Your birthday, probably.”

“Well. I don’t have any other plans.”

“I know.” snorts Tisiphone. “Your maids want to make you a cake.”

“...can they bake?”

“No.”

“Cool.” Agatha drops into the chair in front of Tisiphone’s desk. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Provided they don’t kill you accidentally,” mutters Tisiphone, bending over her papers again. “Stupid girls. They admire you a lot, you know.”

“...do they?”

“Yes. Even Alice, though she pretends not to. Yadira was harping on about how her little sister wears clumps everywhere, now. And they all went running to Tedros to find out if you were upset about the Pollux thing.”

Agatha stares, surprised and slightly touched. 

“I wasn’t. Not really.”

“I know.”

“Marilyn told Tedros what we’re doing.”

Tisiphone doesn’t look particularly irritated. 

“Hm. I thought _you_ might tell him, to be honest.”

“I thought about it, but I was worried he’d take it badly.”

“Did he?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe he’ll manage to survive the scrutiny of our family after all.”

Agatha grins, slightly nervous. 

“You think?”

“Provided he doesn’t say anything stupid.” Tisiphone flips her papers over. “You’ve got a meeting with a _Rot_ reporter, tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know. Making it awfully easy for us, aren’t they?”

Tisiphone looks at her, and they both smirk. 

“Just a little bit.”

The next day, Agatha cracks her neck and goes into the interview, ready to ruin the life of whoever they sent to interview her.

She can practically hear Callis laughing. 

**ROYAL REBEL: PRINCESS AGATHA CRITICISES THE ROYAL ROT FOR PREVIOUS HEADLINES**

In notes obtained by our reporters, the _Camelot Courier_ can exclusively reveal that, when questioned by _Rot_ reporter Edward Persians in an unreleased interview, the Queen-to-be didn’t hold back. A snippet of the transcript follows as below:

**RR:** Do you not worry, though, that your current actions are reflecting poorly on the King’s reputation? After the events of last year, you would think that you would want to look as good as possible--

**A:** _(cutting him off)_ Surely that’s a bit rich, coming from you.

**RR:** I beg your pardon?

**A:** Well, didn’t you spend a whole year running smear campaigns and siding with Rhian? Only seem to be concerned with bettering Tedros’s reputation when it’s convenient, don’t you?

**RR:** We--

**A:** Mr Persians, here I have a list of twenty past headlines slandering Tedros, all of which ran within the past six months. Shall I read them out?

**RR:** I don’t think that’s really necessary--

**A:** Maybe not. I’m sure everyone remembers them. They were quite memorable. 

**RR:** I-- well-- we’re here to talk about _you,_ Princess. 

**A:** Oh, yeah, you’ve done plenty of talking about me, as well. I especially remember the article from last May where you called me _hideous_ and compared me to the frogs in the Belfry pond. I think I still have that clipping, somewhere. Great fun.

_(We at the Courier have taken the liberty of reprinting some of the worst offending headlines alongside this article. We hope it reminds our readers exactly why they purchase our quality journalism, not… other publications.)_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Me: writes a oneshot  
> Me: you know what this needs? more callis  
> hope you enjoyed! I thoroughly enjoyed the "agatha and pollux try to maim each other" scene hh. also yes all of the wardwell clan do have greek names. four of them are names I stole from literature (tisiphone, iphigenia, ismene, eris) the others are just greek origin lmao. maybe I'll do a full one introducing them all? not sure


End file.
